Importing MIB data

How to import SNMP MIB data into MIB Manager.

Before you begin

In the Preferences window, specify locations for the MIBs that are regularly used by the vendor MIBs. Ensure your MIBs are located in vendor-specific directories, and that any associated equipment numbers are located in subdirectories. Also ensure that these directories do not contain any non-MIB text files. Most MIBs are installed into the NCHOME/omnibus/var/mibmanager/mibs/base directory, and all the RFC MIBs are installed in the NCHOME/omnibus/var/mibmanager/mibs/rfc directory.

The MIBs that you are importing might be dependant on other MIBs. To ensure that MIB Manager can search for dependant MIBs while performing the import, set the search path to the locations of the dependant MIB files.

Procedure

To import MIB data:

Click Import or, from the menu, click File > Import.
In the Directory field, specify the location of the MIB modules that you want to import.
To make MIB Manager parse all the MIBs found in available subdirectories, select the Traverse subdirectories check box.

Click Import.

The Import Status window is displayed as the MIB modules are parsed. The left side of this window displays the number of different MIB object types as each one is discovered during the parsing of the imported MIB files.

After the MIBs are parsed, MIB Manager reviews each MIB module and parses all the MIB objects that it locates. After all the objects are parsed, MIB Manager reviews each MIB and processes the import statements to locate any referenced MIB modules. If any referenced MIB modules cannot be located in previously imported MIB modules, MIB Manager searches the directories specified in the search path. The right side of the Import Status window displays icons to show the status of any import statements found in the imported MIBs, as shown in the following table:

Icon	Description
	Indicates that the import statement has not been resolved.
	Indicates that the import statement has been resolved.
	Indicates that the MIB Module referenced in the import statement could not be resolved.

You can expand the import statement tree to display which MIB modules are using import statements to reference other MIB modules.

Import Complete is displayed at the top of the status frame when all the imported MIB files have been processed. You can view the all the status messages generated during the import by clicking View Status History and using the View drop-down list to select a filter option.

Click Dismiss to close the Import Status window.

Results

The MIB Modules view refreshes automatically to show the newly imported MIB module names. The OID Tree view refreshes automatically to show all the newly imported MIB objects To rebuild the tree, MIB Manager searches the parent nodes of the tree (iso, ccitt, and joint-iso-ccitt) recursively for child nodes until it finds a child node that has no associated children. If no errors are detected, a fully populated MIB tree is displayed in the OID Tree view, which contains the parsed objects.

Clicking an object in the OID Tree view automatically displays the object in the MIB Modules view. The Details view displays detailed information about the selected object.

The imported MIB modules are stored in an xml file which represents the structure of that MIB module. The xml files are located in the NCHOME/omnibus/var/mibmanager/data directory.

If unresolved import statements are detected, contact the vendor responsible for the missing MIB or MIBs, add the missing file or files to the search path and repeat the import.

Note:

Vendors sometimes specify duplicate object names, or specify an object name that is identical to an object name specified in an RFC.

For example, an object named system is defined in module SNMPv2-MI' with OID 1.3.6.1.2.1.1 and another object named system is defined in module WINDOWS-NT-PERFORMANCE, with OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.1.1.3.1.1.23. Also, an object named sysDescr is defined as system.1 in module SNMPv2-MIB and another object named sysFileReadOperationsPerSec is defined as system.1 in module WINDOWS-NT-PERFORMANCE. In this case, it is unclear which parent object the child objects are associated with.

When an object with a duplicate parent name is located, MIB Manager attempts to find the parent that is defined in the same MIB module. In the previous example, this is WINDOWS-NT-PERFORMANCE. If neither of the parents are defined in the same MIB module, MIB Manager then searches to see if the parent is defined in other MIB modules on which the object is dependant. MIB Manager also identifies other MIB modules that reference the parent and selects the most commonly referenced parent name. However, this could result in an incorrectly populated MIB tree and incorrectly calculated OIDs. Therefore, each time MIB Manager finds a duplicate object name, it logs a warning and records the actions taken to resolve the duplication in a debug file.